A current project with Dr Alain Rival
at CIRAD in Montpellier, France, involves oil palm and DNA methylation.
It is funded as a British Council - Alliance Programme and started in
April 2002. We have developed approaches to isolation of methyltrasferase
enzymes critical to epigenetic control of gene expression, particularly
with respect to the flowering abnormality in oil palm. Drs James Tregear
and Estelle Jaligot are also involved in the project.

With Professor Thomas Schmidt, University
of Dresden, we have a project investigating DNA in sugar beet, its organization
and the function. This is under the British Council - ARC research cooperation
initiative and started in July 2003..